All Forum Posts by: Cody Lewis

Natively a CRM is a database with a UI frontend that makes it easier to use. Are you wanting separate applications, one for the database and one for the CRM?

IMO, you can do a lot with Calendars, Contacts, and a Task Manager. All free on iOS or Android. If you have more than yourself that will need to have access to the CRM to share task or contacts, that's when CRM software starts to make sense.

Do you have any specific requirements for a database or CRM? My company invested day one in a CRM, and coming from a sales background I thought I knew what I wanted. However, I quickly found what I needed was not part of the software functionality. 

I would stick with the stock contacts app while using to note taking section. For database, Excel, Google Sheets, or AirTable (web based).

@Jonathan Edmund Thanks for posting. I'm looking for a STR in the N Myrtle/Cherry Grove area. I'll reach out today but love to connect soon if I can't reach you.

Thanks Scott and Carlos!

Our team recently brought management of our three asset portfolio in house. We weren't happy with the reporting with our previous PM so we're building our own list of KPIs to track. Below is the list we've put together thus far, but I'm wondering what else everyone else tracks for KPIs. Which do you prefer weekly vs. monthly? Are we missing any important KPIs?

Properties: 3 Assets, 122 doors total

KPIs we've listed worth tracking:

Guest Cards

Leases

Expiring leases

Renewal rates

Operating expenses

Variance to budget

Cashflow for distribution

Capex costs

Number of work order

Open work order

Completed work order

Turn costs

Turn time

Guest cards

Applications: Cancel/denials/approval with explanations

Gross Income, Other Income, Operating Expenses, NOI, Capex spent, Cash available for distribution, current cash balances

AP / AR balances

Not a broker but I have a good bit of experience with CRM in my current and past life.

Reading your post, I was wondering why you're not using Pipedrive as your source of truth for contacts with Google Contacts as a back-up database? Generally I've found that managing contact databases in different platforms becomes cumbersome. 

Is there a plugin for Google Contacts within Pipedrive that will update when a new contact is added or changed?

What device do you plan to use for editing? If on macOS, I would recommend iMovie to get started before shifting to Final Cut (if you need it). Those powered with something like Canva can be incredibly powerful. 

I’m not as familiar with PC options but I’m sure someone with more experience will chime in as well.

If you plan to produce regularly schedule content, I would HIGHLY recommend hiring someone to edit and post your content. Content management and editing can become a full time job if you’re not careful. I’ve felt that pain for a while with podcast production before finally hiring an editor.

IMO, it will depend on when and what is your exit strategy. If buying for appreciation, when/if you go to sell the market could be up or down and it's hard to time. With cashflow, it does not depend on the time you sell because you're still cash flowing the asset. I prefer cash flow as it's easier to mitigate risk where as appreciation is a timing situation. 

@Monte Riding Honestly I would use Excel until you start to feel any "pain" from not having a full CRM. It will help you understand what you need vs perceive you need. I've also found most email marketing companies have added/built on CRMs as an afterthought to their main platform. After some time in excel for the basics, I would find something like the Hubspot free plan to experiment with something more robust before paying any $ towards a platform. 

My recommendation would be to continue to use Excel, a note taking app, and a reminder app. I've looked into several real estate CRM tools and most of them are lacking in features. CRM's are typically "add-ons" for real estate software making them half baked. 

If you're looking for something like Excel that's more cloud based, I would look at AirTable. One column I added to mine that was helpful was a "Last Call Date". It turns red if the date is more than 2 weeks old reminding me (in case I forgot to add a reminder) to call the person.